The Choices We Make (Part 2 of 2)

Lily's Notes: Hopefully you read Part One first. If not, read that one, then this one please. Also, thank you to everyone who read the first part and came back for seconds. Like I mentioned above, this is for Rosey's Contest and I really hope the ending doesn't disappoint. Comments and reviews welcomed and appreciated.

She clamped her hand over his mouth and put a finger to his lips, silencing his apology.

“Do you think anyone really knows about this place?” Nala pulled herself out from under Damien and stared, still struck with awe at everything around her.

“I’m sure someone did at one time. Why else would we be forbidden to enter the caves?” Damien pulled himself off the ground and gawked at a large gem protruding out of the ground. He bent down and dusted away the lose sand around it. Moments later, he held an emerald, the size of his fist. His jaw gaped open as wide as the mouth of the cave.

“Put that down and get over here,” Nala hissed. She could have cared less about the gems sparkling all along the ground. No, she was too busy staring at the massive cavern around them. Tunnels branched off, this way and that way.

Overhead, a massive hole in the ceiling revealed a pair of moons, peering down at them like a mother’s watchful stare. For an instant, home seemed lost, too far away to consider remembering. She shook the thought away and peered around the corner.

Tunnels branched off in every direction, cut short when each opened up into a spectrum of colorful, brilliant worlds, so very different from her own. Nala danced as she glanced at each one, unable to focus for more than an instant before something new would catch her eye.

Damien couldn’t move.

He didn’t dare speak. Petrified, he could only gape at Nala’s brazen curiosity.

She stopped dead as soon as she saw the boat. “I knew it. Damien come here and look at this.”

His feet remained planted.

The little craft bobbed excitedly in the water, a constant current bubbling up from beneath the rocks and tugging on the delicate chain that docked the craft along the ground. “Where do you think the…Damien, get over here,” Nala barked.

He jumped nervously, his bravado fully shaken. There was hesitation in his first steps and the look in his eyes screamed with a fear of the world collapsing suddenly around them; of discovery; of the unknown. But he came to her side slowly.

She brushed her fingers over the length of the boat. It was as long as she was tall, with two little bench seats built on opposite ends. The craft was meant for a pair.

But a pair of what? Adventurers? Lovers? Rebels?

‘Don’t ask too many questions. It makes one seem unintelligent.’ Mother’s voice was there again, taunting her.

“Will you come with me, Damien?” The question was soft spoken and a part of her wanted him to share the adventure.

“To where? You have no idea where this thing leads. You don’t even know if that boat will carry just you.” In the caves quiet, his words were loud. They were hurtful.

“So you’re going to turn around and put your back to something that could be extraordinary?”

“Yes.” For only a moment, he hesitated, but she caught the faltering in his voice. In that instant of delay, her hopes flew and fell to the ground. She didn’t want to go it alone. But she would.

Nala stuck her nose up a little and looked down at him. “I guess all handle this one on my own then.” She spoke scornfully. “Go home, Damien. Just go.”

He started to turn away but his instincts, the ones yelling at him to run from the unknown, faltered for an instant and he looked back at Nala.

“I said go.”

He didn’t stop this time but skulked back they way they had come.

At the mouth of the cave he haulted, keeping Nala and the little boat in sight. She loosened the chain from the post that held it and stepped into the boat gracefully. The pair of moons overhead cast an eerie glow around her, twisting silver light into her golden hair.

Damien braced his body against a towering stalagmite. He watched as she shoved the ground hard only once and drifted away.

“Be safe,” he whispered.

She didn’t hear him. And she never came back.